see, this is why i'm an agnostic witness.

i heard someone saying something but i'm not sure who it was nor what was being talked about.

this is why i'm an agnostic witness.

Too bad. but at least you are not hearing "things"

These people give Him a bad reputation, i tell you.

"see, this is why i'm an agnostic witness."
First...and maybe not here, but on a different thread, could you explain to me what an agnostic witness is? I tried searching it, but I couldn't find much except for a reference to REM.

Second...this is why you agnostic? The fact that other people talk to God, and they believe He talks back? That confuses me. Why?

ThinkAloud...
Good, and well said. I do believe though that God is talking to these people. I just don't think they are listening.
I think they hear what they want to hear. My younger sister got caught up with a rather eccentric group of worshippers. She came back from a youth conference all "doped up" on the Spirit. She claimed that people were talking in tongues, passing out in extasy, and receiving revelations. I cautioned her and reminded her that these things are extremely rare. Old Testament/New Testament/any religious documents will cited very, very few cases ever. In most all of the cases, it seems, unless the person was posessed, the case involved people who had been deeply spiritual and strong in faith for many years before even getting a little bit of that good stuff. And only one occasion of something even similar to her youth conference comes to mind. It was when God dispersed the people from the tower of Babel across the world. But this was not a spiritual gift, as such. It was punishment for their audacity. I proposed to her that it might just be the fact that people want attention.

Nothing made her more angry at the time. She was having her experience reduced to attention-hungry motives from junior high students. But the next time she went, she couldn't help but see that many people seemed to be looking just for a bit of attention.

In the same respects, I believe that most people who drop the name of God into their sentences are just looking for validation. Sometimes, there is nothing there to validate. But other times, they just need to hear that they are right, especially on issues of religion. It can be so hard. If your only tool to working it out is a Bible, or even if you're lucky enough to have a good minister with some credentials, there is still so much to muddle through.

I do enjoy listening to many of them, or reading their logs, because I want to find out the type of god that they believe in. It's often times not the Christian God, nor the Jewish God. Often times, because they read the Bible on their own with little other guidance, they come to the crossroads of deciding what they think is right. It seems, though, that instead of really looking at what God wants them to do, they simply reinvent God into their image...a god that is friendly, bubbly, never gets angry, permits everything that they want to do, agrees with their sin, and smiles at the end of everyday, saying "you tried your best today, sorta, and that's cool with me, you'll get into heaven for real, I got a great place up here for you, if one of my rules is too hard to follow, just relax, it's okay, no one is perfect and I don't want you to try any harder than you feel like...drugs? okay, premarital sex?, enjoy that why I made it, abortion? sure, I don't want you being inconvienced, just know that I love you (insert if Christian: and I sacrificed my only son for you to a horrible death) so much that I've given you everything and more, oo heaven is a place on earth, bubbles, bubbles, I'm a carebear."

Normally I try to stay away from being snide, but I was actually having a bit of fun towards the end. I apologize. That went a bit too far. However, the principal is still the same. They say that God speaks to them to allow them special conditions or knowledge. Really, in most cases, I'm going to have to think that if it doesn't conform to the Judeo-Christian God as detailed, then it's probably a deception from big D. Though, tragically, most probably don't understand the difference since they've never really put themselves to finding out.

I believe that God speaks thru His Word, for those willing to discern Him. I don't claim to have personal revelations, only pieces of a puzzle that lead me in His ways. Something in the Sciptures His Word will strike me; that is God. When the Scriptures reveal how I am not living in accordance with His Will, then that is God. But God has yet to make me a prophet or to command me to write a revelation. Until then I will search for Him where He may be found and confrom my will to His.

I might as well post my own litany here as well. I've posted it in several threads such as these - it's my own bible I thump. The Bible of logic and reason. So here it goes again...

If God, (whichever God you wish to pick), were to influence mankind in ANY way - be it talking to JUs or talking to messengers and prophets, then what He has done is stack the deck. He has dropped His own pebble into the pond, and His ripples have an effect on nthe behavior of the people living in the pond. Now why is that a problem? Shouldn't God be allowed to influence things in His own creation? Well, sure. But along with that goes the responsibility of the influence. That responsibility, by His own action, is now HIS responsibility. Our free will is gone.

If we, as mankind, are to be judged by our actions (which is the standard ideology) then those actions must not be influenced in any way by Him.

As for this:

It seems, though, that instead of really looking at what God wants them to do, they simply reinvent God into their image...a god that is friendly, bubbly, never gets angry, permits everything that they want to do, agrees with their sin, and smiles at the end of everyday, saying "you tried your best today, sorta, and that's cool with me, you'll get into heaven for real, I got a great place up here for you, if one of my rules is too hard to follow, just relax, it's okay, no one is perfect and I don't want you to try any harder than you feel like...drugs? okay, premarital sex?, enjoy that why I made it, abortion? sure, I don't want you being inconvienced, just know that I love you

Quite tongue in cheek, I realize, but logically incorrect. I don't personally believe that a logical reprieve then just means go do whatever you want because it's all ok. But that logical reprieve DOES exist. To wit....

The standard ideology claims that God created everything from nothing. Cool. That means that prior to the existence of anything else, there was God. Cool. The standard ideology also says that God is perfect in every way. Perfect = can not make a mistake. And in fact, if an entity is the only thing at all that exists, determining a state of perfection in that one entity is an irrational quest. There is nothing to compare it to. (And not to get off on a tangent, but sometimes I muse over the thought that perhaps that's why existence was created in the first place. So there would be something to compare God to. but I digress)

If God is perfect, then everything He creates must also be no matter how awful it may seem to us. As human beings we get bogged down in our mortality and a heavy dose of fear. To suggest that all religious people are genuinely pious and not simply believing what they believe for fear of the repercussions of not believing it and being wrong is about as naieve as naieve gets.

My final tally is that we're all perfect just how we are. It's confusing, yes. Our instincts cry out against such a thought. How can that guy that put the infant in the woodchipper for crying too much be "ok?"

Well, logically, it must be...no matter what God you believe in. The trick is understanding why.

"If God, (whichever God you wish to pick), were to influence mankind in ANY way - be it talking to JUs or talking to messengers and prophets, then what He has done is stack the deck...Our free will is gone."

I'm not exactly sure as to what you mean here. Free will is the ability to make our own decisions. Just because God says something, that does not erase or destroy free will. It doesn't even diminish it. But instead enhances it.
Free will is influenced by everything. Everything you see, hear, taste, feel, smell, sense, anything and everything that you absorb from anything around you and outside of you is an influence upon your free will. But that doesn't damage free will. In fact, for it to be supremely free will, we would need omniscience. For then we could truly make decisions unfettered by the limitation of ignorance. Ignorance is what hinders our free will. Making decisions, exercising free will, is an act of assessing the information on hand and making a judgment. Therefore, if we had perfect knowledge then we would have perfect free will. But God didn't give us that. That is the ability to choose Him and to discern Him and to seek Him. If we had perfect knowledge, what need would there be to choose Him? We would already know to choose Him. Which in a very twisted way could be perceived of loss of free will. But ultimately no one in Heaven, nor in Hell, nor on Earth removes your free will, your ability to choose. God has given that gift and does not infringe upon it.
However, one must assume that even with ultimate knowledge, you still can choose not to follow God or to be with Him, being that free will is still a choice. If anyone was close to it, it must have been Lucifer. Jealousy that free will was created and gifted to man over the hosts of Heaven was enough for him to choose to leave. As long as we're following the "standard."
So if the temptations for evil(distance from God) come from Satan, what chance did humanity have? Their free will as being influenced by one side, providing only certain information that would tempt them to choose Satan. God improved free will by offering guidance in the path of light. He doesn't require that you follow it, but he does want you to have all the information you need to make a decision.
No, free will is not disturbed by information. It is improved by it. That is why we must search out the truth, even if it seems like a jigsaw puzzle with tons of mixed up pieces. They all belong to the same truth. We have all the tools we need to work out a decision. That's what we must do.
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"are [we] to be judged by our actions (which is the standard ideology) then those actions must not be influenced in any way by Him."
If God is just, as the "standard" tells us, then how could we be judged without knowing His laws? It would be like the cops busting down your door and lining you and your family up for execution. When you get to ask them they why, they reply "that as of 5 minutes ago, it be came a crime, punishable by immediate execution, to eat potato chips." You had no idea. And you used your free will to eat those d*#ned potato chips. If you had only known, you might not have eaten them. You might still have anyways, but at least then you would have had a choice. But you really didn't get a choice, did you? You didn't know the rules or the consequences of your actions. Justice, is it? Is that the way that you hope to be judged?
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You forgot the best part of my quote that God is really a carebear.
A logical reprieve...hmmm. You mean a place/bearing/time/existence/something that isn't logical? You believe that to exist. Great!! But what bearing does it have on anything?
And you said that my quote was illogical. I agree. It was demonstrating the extreme condition of someone who creates God in his/her image and then justifies the position by saying that God told them it was cool. I think that's hideous illogical as well. I don't think people should create or modify God to fit their mold. That isn't the purpose of God in any context.
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"Well, logically, it must be..." (in reference to God being perfect...therefore we are perfect)
No. That is the denial of free will. Do I believe that we are created perfect? Yes. God has constructed us perfectly to His specifications. And He even gave us a perfect gift, the ability to choose. However, we kinda screwed that up. Original sin. Adam and Eve, they chose to see good and evil. He didn't gift us with this ability. No, we stole that. And now we see good and evil. And we do good and evil. God did not create us flawed, but we have found it fit to mar ourselves. And so we all wear the mark of Adam and Eve.
For if we were so perfect, why would God send His Son to conquer sin and death for us? If we were perfect, no problem. We wouldn't been weak enough to need a Savior. And if we were perfect as God is perfect, would we be subject to damnation?
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I have a feeling this isn't finished, not by a long shot. But I don't mind peeling onions. I am often surprised at what I find. It might be that I could agree very much with some of your thoughts. Time will tell.

GWB of course is the most famous Later-day-whatever. He said that Higher Authority told him to invade Iraq.

Could you reference that?  I seem to have missed that in all his press conferences.

well said.



hahahahah I was just thinking the same thing. I too never heard this.



God is perfect. He did not make a mistake. Did you know that he had the Savior planned from the foundation of the earth, knowing quite well when he put man and woman in the garden with freewill what would happen? God knew exactly what he was doing right from the get go. There's a well crafted master plan in the works. When all is said and done, we will realize how little and insignificant we really are and how awesome and Holy God really is. Evidently we haven't come to the point where he feels we've learned this truth yet.



That's what the world tells us, but not what God tells us. He reminds us every day how imperfect we really are. You need to listen to your instinct....  

God wanted to live for all eternity with people who wanted to live with Him. So, He gave us the free will to make that decision. Some choose another way. He doesn't want to spend eternity with those who don't want to be with Him. He would love if everyone chose him. But He knew from the beginning that some would, and some wouldn't. It was worth it for Him to create the world in order to be with those who wanted Him.

As for God talking to people, as people received the Holy Spirit, they often began speaking in tongues. Prophecy is still a spiritual gift. Whether or not it is common, or was common, I can't say.

Prophecy and speaking in tongues are two different gifts. Speaking in tongues was a gift from God in the beginning of the church for the purpose of the gospel being propagated and spread throughout the world. Both Propecy (foretelling the future) and Tongues, in my opinion, were Apostolic gifts and are no longer needed with the writing of the NT.

Prophecy is foretelling the future? I thought prophecy was knowing what God is saying.

Tongues are still around today. Being able to speak different languages without actually knowing them happens all the time, just nobody notices.

Yeah, 'cuz God changes and all that.

I believe that God speaks thru His Word, for those willing to discern Him. I don't claim to have personal revelations, only pieces of a puzzle that lead me in His ways. Something in the Sciptures His Word will strike me; that is God. When the Scriptures reveal how I am not living in accordance with His Will, then that is God. But God has yet to make me a prophet or to command me to write a revelation. Until then I will search for Him where He may be found and confrom my will to His

First, Thanks.
My thoughts exactly and I think you elaborated on the issue in a great way. Funny sometimes, but we all need that.

Could you reference that? I seem to have missed that in all his press conferences

That was in Woodward's first Book. When asked :Have you talk to your father before making the decision to invade. His answer was something like: I talked to higher Auithority. that implies, inmo, what i said in the article.

To all,

Thanks for the thoughtful comments. and they are worth responding to. I promise that i will soon after returning home from this Bus trip.

That was in Woodward's first Book. When asked :Have you talk to your father before making the decision to invade. His answer was something like: I talked to higher Auithority. that implies, inmo, what i said in the article.

So you have heresay incorrectly quoted with an interpretation. So you are actually saying that your statement was false.